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Is High-Speed Rail green?
Environmental Assessment of the Chinese Bullet Train System
Author: Michael Ziegelmeir
Matriculation N°.: …
E-Mail: michael.ziegelmeir@tum.de
Date: 20.06.2019
Home University: Technical University of Munich – TUM School of Governance
Institution: Nanjing University
Seminar: Environmental & Trade Policies
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Chinese references have been automatically translated to English. The titles in the bibliog-
raphy are mostly shown in English if applicable and not in original language (Chinese).
Environmental Impact of Chinese High-Speed Rail System Seite 2
1 Introduction
This work examines the environmental impacts of the High-Speed Railway (HSR) system
operated by the Chinese Railway High-Speed company (CRH
1
). Hereby, a focus is set on
both CO2 emissions and air pollution.
Railway in general and HSR in specific is generally considered as a “green” or even the
“greenest” way of freight and person transportation, as claimed by the International Union
of Railways (UIC), which says that for “medium and long-distance journeys [and] consid-
ering […] the complete life cycle [,HSR] is in terms of sustainability the most efficient mode
of transport” (Jehanno et al. 2011). However, other scholars question the overall climate-
friendliness of the current railway system (Givoni et al. 2009), and emphasize that the im-
pact depends heavily on the type of trains. They also point out that traffic management is a
critical factor when exploiting the ecological benefits of rail travel. For HSR services, not
only operation but most of all construction is playing a huge role for assessing overall envi-
ronmental benefits. The extremely rapid development of the CRH network and its massive
consumption of capital, know-how and material raises the question if the system is indeed
able to create a net environmental benefit. Here, this work tries to give indications to answer
a series of questions: To what extent is the initial construction of the infrastructure relevant
for an ecological assessment? Where do potential environmental gains of HSR trains come
from exactly and how can they be exploited best? How efficient and extensive does an HSR
network need to be to lead to these effects? Is a rebound effect happening and how can it be
avoided? How is the interrelation between tackling climate change issues (such as avoiding
CO2 emissions) and local environmental problems (such as improving air quality) and is
there a trade-off taking place?
After a description of the CRH network and China’s transport market, various effects
through HSR on the transport, energy and logistics sectors of the country will be analyzed.
Next to the embedded emissions through construction and operation, mainly substitutional
effects in air and road travel are playing an important role, as well as effects on freight
transport. Here, it is to be noted that CO2 emissions need to be considered throughout the
1
Further, when using CRH as an abbreviation the railway service (company) is meant. When speaking of
HSR, I refer to the more general concept of high-speed rail without a direct focus on China.
Environmental Impact of Chinese High-Speed Rail System Seite 3
entire lifecycle of an HSR project, while negative impacts on air pollution during the con-
struction phase might be accepted if this leads to long-term improvements. Other important
factors are China’s electricity production and possible rebound effects through increased
overall traffic due to more convenient, affordable and faster connections. This part remains
mostly qualitative, however, real data such as passenger numbers is used and applied on the
theoretical model by Westin and Kågeson (2012).
The work ends with a conclusion of the advantages and shortcomings of the Chinese HSR
case and proposes recommendations for a more sustainable HSR networks, by taking into
account experiences from other countries with different economic principles and environ-
mental problems. While the estimation of the impact on CO2 emissions through an exten-
sive HSR network is primarily important for industrialized nations with sufficient techno-
logical know-how and a low-carbon electricity production, the findings on the effects of
HSR on air pollution might also be relevant for other countries with similar problems, such
as India.
Environmental Impact of Chinese High-Speed Rail System Seite 4
2 The Chinese High-Speed Railway Network
2.1 Development of the network and further plans
Unlike any other nation, China has built a vast network of HSR lines throughout the entire
country within the last decade. Major construction works started in the mid-2000s and the
network grew massively soon, see Figure 1. By 2011, the CRH network became the largest
HSR network in the world, and by 2014 it accumulated more HSR kilometers than the rest
of the world combined. Today, only few countries around the world have a similar density
of HSR stations and connections, including Japan, France, Spain or Italy, while all those
countries are significantly smaller than China. In 2019, the total length of the CRH network
grew to more than 30,000 km, which is about two-thirds of worldwide HSR lines. With
many lines being designed for 350 km/h, the Chinese HSR network is also the one with
many of the fastest services of the world
2
. (UIC 2019b)
Figure 1: CRH network by 06/2019, own Graphic
The CRH network includes the longest HSR line of the world between Beijing and Guang-
zhou (2,439 km in 8:01 h), the longest HSR service of the world between Beijing and Kun-
ming (2,760 km in 10:49 h) and the fastest HSR service of the world between Beijing and
Shanghai (1,318 km in 4:18 h, 307 km/h average speed) (12306 2019; The Big Story 2012;
China Daily 2017; Lu 2017).
2
Only the above-mentioned nations have multiple lines with operational speeds above 300 km/h. Lines in
Germany or South Korea are designed for 300 km/h, but these speeds are mostly not used in operation.
Environmental Impact of Chinese High-Speed Rail System Seite 5
Current construction works and plans aim to expand the network to 38,000 km by 2025 and
45,000 km by 2030, see Figure 2. Long-term plans include to connect the CRH network to
international destinations, among them Europe through lines crossing central Asia (Wang
2014a), Taiwan with the world’s longest undersea tunnel (Chen 2018), and various nations
in Southeast Asia in order to reach the cities of Bangkok, Hanoi and Singapore (People's
Daily Online 2011; Geopolitical Monitor 2017). However, financial shortcomings in many
nations are delaying construction starts or planning is halted. To overcome these problems,
in 2013, the Chinese government announced the One Belt, One Road initiative, which bun-
dles infrastructure investments around the globe in order to improve China’s connectivity
to world markets. Many of the included investments are funded or supported by the Chinese
government. (Chatzky and McBride 2019)
Figure 2: Expansion of the CRH network since major construction starts in 2008. Numbers in 2019 exceed
projections. (Babones 2018)
Environmental Impact of Chinese High-Speed Rail System Seite 6
2.2 Passenger numbers in HSR and other means of transport
Since 2007, the CRH network sees double-digit growth rates on ridership in HSR trains, see
Figure 3. This development has only been slowed down temporarily after the 2011 Wenzhou
accident (Areddy and Yang 2011), and annually passenger numbers lastly grew by more
than 250 million people for the fifth year in row. Since 2017 the CRH network is responsible
for more than 50% of domestic rail transport and has long been the only source of overall
rail ridership growth
3
. (Wang 2019; World Bank 2014; Bradsher 2013)
Figure 3: Ridership data on HSR trains in China. Accumulated sources: World Bank (2014), Wang (2019)
While growth rates and absolute numbers of CRH ridership seem impressive in the first
place, scholars claim that still 80% of long-distance travel in China is made by long-distance
buses, which are more affordable. Although train tickets aren’t expensive in comparison to
HSR services in Europe or Japan (Babones 2018) and heavily subsidized by the Chinese
government (Bartlett 2013), GDP per capita is still low in China and many people can’t
afford them (World Bank 2019b). For example, of the 3 billion estimated individual trips
made during the Chinese New Year week in 2018, only 390 million were made by railway
and only 58% of those by HSR services, which results in an overall market share of a mere
7.5% (Babones 2018).
Growth rates in Chinese air travel remain behind HSR travel in both relative and absolute
terms, see Figure 4. This trend is contrary to the developments in most other industrialized
3
In 2018, 3.37 billion persons have been transported in the Chinese railway system, a growth of 290 million
people towards compared to 2017. This growth was only caused by increased passenger numbers in HSR
trains, while conventional rail didn’t see any growth at all (Wang 2019).
Environmental Impact of Chinese High-Speed Rail System Seite 7
nations – even those with HSR services, which only see little growth outside of China
(World Bank 2019a, 2019c; UIC 2019a, 2011; Eurocontrol 2018).
Figure 4: Passenger numbers of Chinese domestic rail increase by 10% annually with most of it coming out
of HSR services (Babones 2018)
Private car as transport mode in China plays a significantly less important role than in other
countries and per capita kilometers traveled in cars is among the lowest of industrialized
countries. Especially for long-distance journeys, the role of private cars can be neglected.
This trend can be expected to intensify through stricter air pollution policies and restrictions
on vehicle admissions in many Chinese cities. (Huo et al. 2012)
Environmental Impact of Chinese High-Speed Rail System Seite 8
3 Estimation of the net environmental effect
Based on the above stated data and combining it with the research by other scholars, this
section tries to estimate the overall net effect of the CRH network regarding environmental
issues. Here, the analysis will consider both CO2 emissions and local air pollution.
Overall, the estimation will be based on following considerations, which are further detailed
in the respective sections: 1) The development and construction of an HSR network requires
the release of “embedded” emissions, which need to be taken into account for estimating
the lifecycle impact; 2) The emissions of HSR during operation depends mostly on the used
energy mix and energy production based on fossil fuels may jeopardize environmental ben-
efits; 3) Presumably, affordable and efficient HSR services have an substitution effect on
air travel. This is mitigating emissions, which can be directly associated to the benefits of
HSR; 4) Other means of transports might also be affected, with some of those being even
more environmental-friendly than HSR trains; 5) The substitution effects depend on the
route length and travel time, and are best described through the specific elasticity of the
CRH services; 6) HSR lines free up space on other railway lines, which can be used to
increase freight transport via rail instead of less environmental-friendly options; 7) More
affordable, fast and convenient travel options by HSR trains may directly lead to increased
travel demand and therefore lead to a rebound effect, which might neutralize otherwise
reached benefits.
All these factors may play a significant role to the environmental effects of HSR. By com-
bining and weighing their influence, the chapter will be followed by a conclusion, which
estimates the net impacts of the CRH network on CO2 emissions and air pollution.
3.1 Embedded emissions
The construction and maintenance of HSR lines comes not only with high labor and spatial
costs, but also requires the “extensive use of steel and concrete, which are highly energy
intensive in their production” (Westin and Kågeson 2012, p. 1). The embedded emissions
through this energy used must be taken into account when estimating the overall environ-
mental effect of HSR services. For both steel and concrete, China’s domestic production is
Environmental Impact of Chinese High-Speed Rail System Seite 9
large enough to meet their (enormous) demands
4
, while it is even a net exporter of steel
(ITA 2019; Statista 2019c, 2019a). Therefore, it can be considered that the energy needed
for the construction of the CRH network comes directly out of domestic sources. China’s
energy production is heavily based on coal, emitting both large amounts of CO2 and affect-
ing air quality (eia 2017). Here, it should be noted, that by importing steel and concrete from
countries with a greener energy mix, China could improve the environmental impact of its
HSR network by avoiding local emissions and improving both its own CO2 balance and air
pollution problems (cf. van Ruijven et al. 2016). However, as these are heavy and large
products these benefits may be neutralized through shipping them to China. Estimating the
impact of the high-carbon production of raw materials on a lifecycle assessment is not pos-
sible within this research. Instead, the figure proposed by Westin and Kågeson (2012) will
be used as a baseline, which claim that in order “to offset embedded emissions [of HSR] 10
million annual one-way trips are usually required” (p.1).
The authors mention that embedded emissions through construction are especially depend-
ent on the ratio of used tunnels and bridges and claim a factor of four to six on the embedded
emissions on these respective sections. In China the ratio of tunnels and bridges is signifi-
cantly higher than in other comparable HSR networks around the world, with some routes
reaching up to more than 90% (e.g. 92% for the Guizhou section of the Guilin to Guiyang
HSR line) (Wang 2014b). Also, most of the Chinese HSR lines are built on viaducts in order
to save on land acquisition costs and delays during construction (Freeman and Kroeber
2010). Studies put the average ratio of bridges and tunnels in the CRH network at above
50% (He et al. 2017). Regarding the operational effects on the environment, HSR energy
demand increases sharply with speeds beyond 250 km/h. With large parts of the CRH net-
work operating at 350 km/h, the overall energy efficiency drops consequently. Altogether,
this would roughly double or triple
5
the amount of trips required by Westin and Kågeson to
20 to 30 million annually.
A study by the World Bank in 2013 shows that the average HSR route in China had 22.5
million passengers annually, with figures going as high as 100 million passengers for the
line between Beijing and Shanghai (Bullock et al. 2014). While overall passenger numbers
tripled since and can be expected to grow further, the network grew by a factor of roughly
4
China produces and consumes roughly half of the world’s cement. The Chinese cement industry is there-
fore responsible for about 4% of worldwide CO2 emissions (Statista 2019b; Rodgers 2018).
5
The authors calculate with a ratio of 10% tunnels and bridges.
Environmental Impact of Chinese High-Speed Rail System Seite 10
2.5, making an estimate of 25 to 30 million passengers per line on average reasonable, which
would be comparable to France (25 million) or almost Japan (36 million) (cf. Ollivier 2015).
It can be assumed that numbers are significantly lower on remote lines such as the 1,785 km
long line connecting Lanzhou with Urumqi in the far west of the country, where as of 2019
only four daily services are running
6
(12306 2019; UIC 2019b). Passenger density on this
line might be as low as 2-5 million annually (Zhao 2019) and because of its length is highly
affecting the national average figures.
Additionally, the quick construction of many HSR lines in China came with the price of
building dedicated stations for HSR trains, often outside of the city center. This approach is
not only prolonging efficient travel times, but also getting to and from the station to the
destination requires another mean of transport – often taxis – which then negatively affect
the embedded emissions of HSR (Ollivier 2015). However, as diverted traffic presumably
comes mostly from aviation, which has the same issues once arriving at the airport, this
shouldn’t be seen as a comparative disadvantage for HSR.
3.2 Electricity production
One of the most important factors to estimate the environmental impact of HSR lines during
operation is the origin of electricity. As the UIC report by (Jehanno et al. 2011) points out,
one of the biggest advantages of railways is that it is currently the only feasible transport
method, which can use electricity as energy source without being dependent on fossil fuels,
batteries or technology innovations as for the case for hydrogen cars. However, this only
reduces overall emissions if electricity production is mostly renewable or nuclear based. In
2015, 72% of China’s electricity comes from coal. However, as the share of renewables in
the energy mix is steadily increasing, travelling by HSR will be more and more environ-
mentally friendly over the years
7
(eia 2017).
6
In comparison, there are more than 100 daily trains on the Beijing-Shanghai line
7
Of course, one could argue that HSR electricity production is part of the marginal demand and would there-
fore always come from coal power plants as long as China hasn’t phased out of coal – which isn’t foreseea-
ble for decades. Assuming this, the environmental case for the CRH network would look significantly worse.
(cf. Givoni et al. 2009).
Environmental Impact of Chinese High-Speed Rail System Seite 11
3.3 Substitution of air traffic
To improve the environmental case of HSR lines, Westin and Kågeson (2012) conclude that
“diverted traffic must come primarily from aviation” (p.6), a claim which is shared by other
scholars (cf. Givoni et al. 2009). This section will examine if that’s the case for the CRH
network. Most importantly, the Chinese aviation market needs to be put in context for a
comprehensive analysis. First, airfares in China are comparatively high; budget airlines are
(almost) non-existent (Bradsher 2013). Second, population density together with increasing
wealth has its price: The airspace in China is heavily trafficked. Strict regulations on travel
routes lead to frequent “traffic jams” in the air and delays. The average delay of airplanes
in China is with 43 minutes as high as nowhere else in the world (The Economist 2017;
Bergman 2016). Consequently, especially for shorter and mid-distance routes, HSR rid-
ership has increased sharply through providing reliable service at mostly more affordable
and stable prices, while travel times don’t increase (Bradsher 2013). Since the introduction
of the CRH network most airlines have grounded services on short routes and reduced them
on longer ones due to low profitability. Routes on over 1,500 km don’t seem to be impacted
(infzm 2011). Still, China has the second-fastest growing domestic aviation market of the
world, but as mentioned before the HSR market is growing significantly faster in both ab-
solute and relative terms (cf. Bradsher 2013) and is heavily eating market share of the do-
mestic aviation industry by affecting “more than 60% of it” (Xu 2011). Figures show that
e.g. the Tianhe Airport of Wuhan was losing roughly 10% of its passengers per year due to
the opening of the HSR lines connecting the city. Railway market shares along the route
Wuhan-Guangzhou increased by 60% (New Beijing News 2011).
It remains open if the improved integration of airports in the CRH network will increase or
decrease air travel. On one side, switching from international flights to HSR services instead
of connecting domestic flights will be made more attractive through this, which would fur-
ther decrease emissions (Givoni et al. 2009). On the other side, airports and air travel get
more accessible and attractive through better connectivity and therefore overall air traffic
might increase further (cf. New Beijing News 2011).
Environmental Impact of Chinese High-Speed Rail System Seite 12
3.4 Substitution of road traffic
Research suggests that from a lifecycle viewpoint long-distance buses might even be more
ecological than poorly utilized railway, yet alone HSR service (atmosfair 2019). So, does
HSR cannibalize long-distance bus service and does this create environmental harm? Here,
air pollution also plays a big role, as HSR trains can potentially run on green energy today,
while technology won’t allow electric- or hydrogen-powered long-distance buses for some
time to come (Givoni et al. 2009). Consequently, buses are dependent on combustion en-
gines and creating a fair share of China’s air pollution. However, mostly because of higher
ticket prices, it can be assumed that HSR has only little substitution effects on long-distance
buses, and the small differences in their respective environmental impact are not considered
as being a relevant part of the overall estimation.
As mentioned before, with private car traffic not being as important in China as in other
countries, the absolute substitution effect on it is small. For this part, HSR services are pre-
sumably more environmental-friendly than cars, even with full occupation.
3.5 HSR elasticity
The circumstances described above suggest that short routes (<150 km) most likely see only
low levels of substitution by HSR services and will still mostly be covered by public buses,
private cars or conventional rail. Here, the distance of HSR stations to city centers is crucial,
as travel time to the station will most often be longer than the actual time on the train. (cf.
Ollivier 2015)
For mid-distance travels (300-1,200 km), HSR often provides the fastest and most reliable
travel option while staying relatively affordable. Here, diverted traffic can be expected to
come primarily from the aviation market, and as prices increase, price-sensitive customers
would still rather choose to travel with long-distance buses or conventional railway (cf. Ol-
livier 2015).
For long-distance travels (>1,500 km), air travel stays comparatively competitive. Savings
in both time and money would drive customers to avoid HSR services if affordable airfares
are available. As such travels can be assumed to be planned beforehand, and price volatility
is high on the aviation market, many bookings are made well in advance. In contrary to
CRH, other countries’ HSR systems – especially in Western Europe – are trying to use this
Environmental Impact of Chinese High-Speed Rail System Seite 13
effect by offering early-bird fares, which are often considerably cheaper as the usual fares
8
.
While this doesn’t promise large additional revenues, it is a well-proven concept to ripe
environmental benefits even on very long distances and increase occupancy ratios on low-
travelled routes (cf. Ollivier 2015).
3.6 Effect on freight transport
Several scholars claim that the biggest environmental gain by HSR lines isn’t the passenger
service and the described substation effects itself, but instead the space freed up for cargo
transport on conventional lines. Compared to road transport, freight transported by railway
saves not only money, but only energy and up to 90% CO2 emissions. Obviously, this effect
could also be used by just building more conventional lines in the first place and is only
applicable when actual lack of capacity is present
9
(cf. van Ruijven et al. 2016). But as HSR
lines in China are only estimated to cost 20-30% more than conventional lines due to low
labor costs
10
, the additional investment might be worth it in order to substitute air traffic
(Freeman and Kroeber 2010). However, it needs to be noted that for using the environmental
benefits through railway cargo transport, the electrification rate is an important factor to
decrease both CO2 emissions and local air pollution by not being dependent on diesel trains
(cf. Givoni et al. 2009). Because China has one of the highest share of electrified railway
routes in the world (export.gov 2017), this shouldn’t be a factor negatively affecting the
present case – instead, benefits would most likely even exceed conservative calculations
here.
3.7 Rebound effect
The so-called rebound effect might be one of the most critical factors to assess overall en-
vironmental benefits through HSR. At the same time, it’s hard to weigh in as only estima-
tions on travel growth can be used, because real figures are unavailable due to lacking com-
parability. The environmental rebound effect in this context describes the increased travel
demand through better and faster connectivity, more affordable tickets compared to airfares,
8
E.g. the „Sparpreis“ by the German DB rail company or the low-cost carrier OuiGo in France offer sav-
ings of up to 90% compared to day-to-day fares.
9
However, this is the case for most industrialized nations, especially those with high population density such
as in Western Europe or Japan
10
According to the World Bank, this effect shouldn’t be neglected in countries with high labor costs. In Ja-
pan, Spain or France HSR tracks are three times as expensive as conventional tracks. However, scaling ef-
fects and building on viaducts to minimize land acquisition costs might decrease this figure. (Freeman and
Kroeber 2010).
Environmental Impact of Chinese High-Speed Rail System Seite 14
and more comfortable journeys. While saving emissions per passenger-kilometer, the abso-
lute environmental impact of the transport sector increases because people travel more. (cf.
Turner and Hanley 2011)
There is also a psychological environmental rebound effect, which describes the decreased
willingness to avoid unnecessary journeys because of their ecological impact (cf. Turner
and Hanley 2011). In the case of China, especially the high reliability of HSR services com-
pared to air travel might lead to a rebound effect. At the same time, better HSR connectivity
of airports – which is currently not the case in China except for few stations like Shanghai
Hongqiao – might lead to a rebound effect in the aviation sector as air travel is getting more
convenient, as mentioned before. Because of the lack of low-cost carriers in China’s aviation
market, this should however not be considered as a too important factor
11
.
When weighing in the rebound effect, it should also always be considered that in more de-
veloped countries the demand for mobility – and especially fast, convenient and long-dis-
tance mobility – is always increasing, which is not necessarily a bad trade-off for environ-
mental issues (cf. Ollivier 2015). For example, studies show that the CRH network led to
an increase of productivity of Chinese workers (Bradsher 2013), which might after all be
valuable to improve environmental impact of other sectors.
11
This is different when looking at the European market! While both airports are more centrally integrated
in the railway system and low-cost airline carriers offer one-way trips from as low as 5€, the better connec-
tivity of rural or remote airports can lead to a significant rebound effect originating from HSR.
Environmental Impact of Chinese High-Speed Rail System Seite 15
4 Conclusion
This work examined several environmental effects triggered by the set-up of an HSR net-
work by looking at the case of the Chinese CRH network. This included an analysis of
embedded emissions through construction and maintenance of the newly built HSR lines in
China; the specific emissions through the national electricity production; the substitution
effects on the aviation sector, other means of transport and the corresponding elasticity of
HSR services; the indirect effects on freight transported by conventional railway; and the
environmental rebound effect through the more convenient and affordable travel option pro-
vided by HSR services.
The analysis showed that the CRH network is meeting certain and the most important re-
quirements for being environmentally friendly: First, the annual average traffic on most
HSR lines is exceeding the minimums proposed by Westin and Kågeson (2012), even when
weighing in the high ratio of tunnels and bridges and China’s coal-powered energy market.
Although traffic numbers are still evolving it can be already clearly seen that some lines
perform considerably better than others. While the environmental effects of some underused
lines such as the Lanxin line are certainly negative and their construction remains question-
able regarding both financial and environmental terms, other lines which would have a neg-
ative impact if viewed individually might be necessary for creating positive network effects,
such as the Guizhou line. Second, the diverted and substituted traffic can be assumed to
come primarily out of the congested Chinese aviation market (cf. Bartlett 2013). While this
is definitely leading to lower CO2 emissions, it doesn’t help with local air pollution as Chi-
nese electricity is still heavily dependent on highly polluting coal power plants, which are a
major source of China’s smog problem. Third, the freed-up capacity on conventional tracks
for cargo transport shouldn’t be underestimated – above all because a quickly developing
country like China would otherwise lack environmentally friendly ways to meet its increas-
ing demands for transporting freight. Fourth, the rebound effect is hard to estimate and al-
most impossible to weigh in. Additionally, it comes with other advantages for the national
economy, which shouldn’t be neglected in the overall benefit of HSR systems. For the case
of China, also because of high fares in relation to the GDP per capita, the rebound effect
shouldn’t neutralize environmental benefits reached through diverted air traffic and in-
creased freight transport via rail.
Environmental Impact of Chinese High-Speed Rail System Seite 16
As a conclusion, it can be said that large parts of the CRH network are most likely improving
the examined environmental issues in China, by decreasing CO2 emissions (especially
through diverted air traffic) and improve air pollution through less road traffic (especially
through cargo transported by conventional rail instead of trucks). However, the Chinese
approach to HSR has some shortcomings, which are negatively affecting its efficiency and
therefore its overall environmental impact. Above all, as long as the electricity for HSR
services originates from coal power plants, CO2 savings are very limited and air pollution
is just moved from one place to the other. Other negative factors include the construction of
underused lines, the high ratio of tunnels and bridges in order to not sacrifice travel speeds
and the lack of cheap fares and therefore competitivity with air traffic on long-distance jour-
neys
12
. Placing HSR stations more in the city center would reduce dependency on road traf-
fic at the destination and improve connectivity to other environmental-friendly means of
transport such as regional and suburban trains or subways (cf. Ollivier 2015). While few
countries with an HSR network of very high speeds do this, it’s also a good approach to
improve overall travel time without the need for high investments in tunnels or bridges for
tracks which are designed for 300 km/h or faster and consume considerably more energy.
The present work shows that the environmental impact of HSR lines depends on more fac-
tors than the pure construction impact and its utilization rates, as other scholars have already
proposed (Rietveld 2002). As these factors depend strongly on the national economy, the
regional energy market, individual travel demands and geographical circumstances, the ap-
proach used in the paper can’t be directly applied to other countries. However, regarding
the significance of using green energy to power HSR services, it can be considered that the
environmental case of HSR looks better in countries like France or Japan, which are mostly
powered by nuclear energy, while providing similar passenger numbers and less underused
lines. When seeing a comprehensive HSR network as indispensable to modern societies’
mobility demands in a low-carbon future, it’s been a smart move to develop the CRH net-
work while labor costs are still low in China. However, a factor mostly neglected in this
work, the construction and planning of such a high-tech and extensive infrastructure project
certainly ties up capital and technological expertise, which could have been used otherwise,
e.g. for decarbonize China’s energy sector.
12
However, this might again lead to rebound effects, especially with very low fares as in Europe
Environmental Impact of Chinese High-Speed Rail System Seite 17
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www.12306.cn.
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zhou%E2%80%99s-black-box-how-china%E2%80%99s-train-tragedy-un-
folded/?mod=WSJBlog, checked on 03.06.2019.
atmosfair (2019): Tips for Climate-friendly Travel. Available online at https://www.at-
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Babones, Salvatore (2018): China's High-Speed Trains Are Taking On More Passengers In
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